Being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame isn’t nearly the honor the NFL would have you believe. In fact, there’s now greater honor in being elected than being inducted.

Six men last week were elected. But consider what has “evolved” in recent summers, immediately following the induction ceremony:

The NFL’s newest inductees have been escorted to an on-site TV studio, one operated by the NFL’s licensed home shopping channel, currently the Home Shopping Network.

And then, from that studio in the Hall, the honored men sit with a shopping channel shill and together they sell the inductees’ autographs on overpriced merchandise.

And the inductees, the NFL and the shopping channel all get a cut.

As low as our sports have stooped, this one’s worth a recap:

The first act of an NFL Hall of Famer upon being inducted is to join with the NFL and the league’s home shopping channel to cash in and try to suck every nickel from the pockets of suckers, er, fans.

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ESPNews’ Super Bowl Sunday afternoon coanchors were, “Ryan Burr, born and raised in Pittsburgh,” and “Steve Bunin, born and raised in Seattle.” Neat.

Fine fellows such as the Steelers’ Joey Porter, who spewed hateful garbage last week, are very important. They’re the kind of athletes who remind us all of just how shallow, desperate and pathetic the media can be. TV is hopelessly – mindlessly – hooked on deception. ESPN advertised the Super Bowl on Disney sibling ABC for a 2:30 p.m. start. Of course, only one person in perhaps 5,000 – especially among those watching a sports network – would fall for a lie of four hours. But TV’s strategic brilliance dictates that if it can fool one person, it doesn’t mind insulting 4,999.

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The chat, on ESPN Radio’s “College GameDay,” Saturday, turned to how UConn’s Jim Calhoun is among basketball’s legion of thin-skinned coaches; no matter how many good things about him a broadcaster may say or a beat writer may write, one bad word and you become his mortal enemy.

Host John Stashower then told of how, in Calhoun’s first years at UConn, Stashower was the radio play-by-play man of UConn basketball. Then, one day, after having been a steady on-air booster of Calhoun’s, he said something about Calhoun that didn’t fully meet with Calhoun’s approval. And then, said Stashower, he no longer was the play-by-play man on UConn games.

Odd, how colleges will invite hate-mongers to speak on campus; they’ll pay for their appearances. After all, colleges should be bastions of free speech, diverse opinion and toleration for all by all.

But say just one bad thing about the basketball coach . . .

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We could expect simple-minded responses – “You go, girl!” – to Epiphanny Prince’s 113-point game from places such as the “Today” show and “Regis and Kelly,” but from MSG Network’s Mike Crispino?

MSG high school maven Mike Quick, on “SportsDesk” Thursday, had just delivered a sensible scolding of Murry Bergtraum High coach Ed Grezinsky for his inexcusable behavior in allowing Epiphanny to run and gun the entire way to a 137-32 final, when Crispino, anchoring, seemed to find Quick’s take to be foolish:

“OK, Quickie, thanks so much; relax a little bit. OK, it was a phenomenal night, 54-of-60. I mean, you can’t ask for much more than that. I don’t know what I really would have done any different than Coach Grezinsky.”

Stunning. Crispino would have us think that both he and Grezinsky were stuck for a better idea.

By the way, high school games are 32 minutes. If Crispino’s numbers are correct, Epiphanny averaged two shots per minute. And he doesn’t know what he’d have done differently. Good grief.